North American IPv6 Task
Force Collaborates with
Department of Defense, University of New Hampshire’s InterOperability
Laboratory, Internet2 and Fortune 100 Companies; Contributes Resources

Durham,
N.H. – October 20, 2003 – The North American IPv6
Task Force (NAv6TF), dedicated to the advancement and propagation of IPv6,
today announced that North America’s largest IPv6 pilot network,
Moonv6, has been deployed to provide the North American market with strong
validation for IPv6 through testing and demonstrating the technology’s
effectiveness under real-world conditions.

The Moonv6 project (http://www.moonv6.org)
is a collaborative effort between the North American IPv6 Task Force (NAv6TF),
the University of New Hampshire’s InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL),
Internet2 (I2), and the Joint Interoperability Testing Command (JITC)
along with other Department of Defense (DoD) agencies, including the U.S.
Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines. Taking place across the U.S. at multiple
locations for the next six months, the Moonv6 project represents the most
aggressive collaborative IPv6 interoperability and application demonstration
event in the North American market to date.

The IPv6 network,
based at UNH, involves more than 30 organizations and reaches from Durham,
N.H. to San Diego, Calif. The UNH-IOL has completed the Moonv6 project’s
initial interoperability and test period, which ran Oct. 7 – Oct.
17. Moonv6 will continue to operate past this initial phase as a U.S.-wide
proving ground for use by industry, universities, research labs, Internet
providers, application providers, the DoD and other government agencies,
and as a tool to assist in the evolution of IPv6 for early adoption and
deployment within the North American geography. The NAv6TF mission is
to keep Moonv6 up and running permanently as the North American IPv6 backbone.

“Moonv6 was a critical milestone and success for the North American
IPv6 Task Force in our effort to demonstrate that IPv6 supports a robust
core networking infrastructure that can be used to now begin IPv6 network
infrastructure deployment,” stated Jim Bound, chair of the NAv6TF,
chair of the IPv6 Forum Technical Directorate and HP fellow.

“Moonv6 will prove to be a wealth of information and practical experience
for all involved,” said Yurie Rich, NAv6TF business director and
Native6 president. “One of the NAv6TF’s primary objectives
is to increase the level of understanding and technical expertise of the
next generation Internet protocol for our North American constituents.
I can’t imagine a more productive way to accomplish that than Moonv6.”

The NAv6TF, under the auspices of the IPv6 Forum, the U.S. Cybersecurity
Office and the Department of Defense defined the idea for Moonv6 during
a meeting to discuss IPv6 technology deployment benefits, as part of the
NAv6TF's effort to provide input to the Cybersecurity request for public
comment. The DoD goal is to complete the transition to IPv6 for all inter
and intra networking across the DoD by FY 2008.

“The IPv6
community and stakeholders applaud the U.S. Department of Defense for
leadership in IPv6 and for taking the Internet where it should go,”
said Latif Ladid, president of the IPv6 Forum, chair of the European Union
IPv6 Task Force and Internet Society trustee. “This massive call
to action is unprecedented in the history of the Internet as IPv6 will
restore the fundamental end to end model of the Internet, the prime enabling
technology piece for growth and innovation for everyone and everything
to be on the Net where it makes sense.”

NAv6TF and Moonv6
The NAv6TF has been an IPv6 conduit for all entities across the North
American geography for Moonv6 and IPv6. The NAv6TF provided many invaluable
resources to the Moonv6 project, including:

An initial
vendor base within the NAv6TF to support Moonv6

NAv6TF volunteers,
who participated in the Moonv6 technology and network requirements,
to assist the University of New Hampshire and Department of Defense
to design the Moonv6 network

Engineers
to support the Moonv6 U.S. sites and test centers

Facilitating
support from the Internet2 community

Development
of the Moonv6 Web site

“NAv6TF
is an all-volunteer work force with a non-vendor view and driven solely
by the motive to deploy IPv6,” said Ben Schultz, managing engineer
at UNH-IOL. “This affords the NAv6TF great respect from industry
and government to be a trusted partner to help define and develop the
deployment strategy for IPv6 in an enterprise.”

Ben Schultz,
managing engineer at the UNH-IOL, and Major Roswell Dixon, Tactical Data
Systems/IPv6 Action Officer, GIG Tactical Networks Branch, Joint Interoperability
Test Command (JITC), will give a presentation entitled “Moonv6 Results,”
on December 9, 2003 at the U.S. IPv6 Summit 2003 in Arlington, VA at the
Doubletree Crystal City. The U.S. IPv6 Summit 2003 is hosted by the North
American IPv6 Task Force and the IPv6 Forum and organized by Charmed Technology,
Inc. For more information, visit http://www.usipv6.com

Moonv6 Participants
The full list of participating communications service providers, equipment
vendors and test equipment companies is as follows:

About
Moonv6
The Moonv6 project is a collaborative effort between the NAv6TF, the UNH-IOL,
the JITC and various other DoD agencies and I2. Taking place across the
U.S. at multiple locations, the Moonv6 project represents the most aggressive
collaborative IPv6 interoperability and application demonstration event
in the North American market to date. For more information, visit the
Moonv6 Web site at http://www.moonv6.org.

About the North American IPv6 Task Force
The North American IPv6 Task Force (NAv6TF) is a sub-chapter of the IPv6
Forum dedicated to the advancement and propagation of IPv6 (Internet Protocol
version 6) in the North American continent. Comprised of individual members,
rather than corporate sponsors, the NAv6TF mission is to provide technical
leadership and innovative thought for the successful integration of IPv6
into all facets of networking and telecommunications infrastructure, present
and future.

Through its continued
facilitation of technical and business case white papers, IPv6-centric
conferences, IPv6 test and interoperability events and collaboration
with IPv6 task forces from around the globe, the NAv6TF strives to be
the guiding force for IPv6 adoption in the U.S. and Canada. For more information,
visit the NAv6TF’s Web site at http://www.nav6tf.org/.